222 - Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation

Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation
By Carl Bangs
Nashville and New York, Abingdon Press, 1971. 382 pp. $9.95.

A good book in English on Arminius has long been a major desideratum. Carl Bangs' scholarly and detailed study goes far to meet this need. It is divided into three parts, corresponding to Arminius' career as student, pastor, and professor. As developed, this method of organization proves inadequate; moreover, excessive detail and a heavy style at times make for tedious reading. Further, the bibliography is unscientific and the text occasionally marred with mistakes such as the identification of the French martyr Anne du Bourg as female. But in spite of these shortcomings, the book remains the best and fullest biography of Arminius in any language.

The principal scholarly contributions of the book would include the following: (1) A great deal of new information about Arminius'

223 - Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation

family and early life which both adds to and corrects what has been known hitherto. This results from a scrupulous and thorough use of manuscript sources in many Dutch archives. At times, however, the temptation to include all the trivial detail has not been successfully overcome. (2) An impressive integration of biography, Reformed theological trends, and an ecclesiastical and politico-economic history of the Dutch Republic (especially Amsterdam) from 1560 to 1610. Indeed, in my opinion, the main strength of the study lies in the careful delineation of church-state issues in the whole Arminius episode. (3) A convincing special case study showing that Calvinism developed out of, or was united with, an indigenous reform impulse with important national peculiarities and that the attempt to enforce doctrinal uniformity on every detail of theology by orthodox Calvinists came after the scholasticizing trend had set in and often ran counter to a spirit and teaching which in many cases corresponded much more closely to Calvin.

The theological material presented by Bangs is his least impressive work. In this area, he has not substantially altered the argument as he presented it in his dissertation (Chicago, 1958), though he does play down somewhat his emphasis on Arminius' substantial agreement with Calvin. Arminius' theology is presented sympathetically and descriptively but only occasionally with telling interpretative remarks. Moreover, when comparative analysis with Calvin's thought is presented, it appears to me to lack a solid grasp of the theology of Calvin. Arminius' teachings on the church, predestination, sin, faith, free will, justification and sanctification, and assurance and perseverance are singled out as areas where he is accused of departing in one way or another from the Calvinistic position. Only on the role of faith, justification/sanctification, and perhaps free will has be convinced me than Arminius and Calvin are in essential agreement. However, it is convincingly shown that Arminius was faithful to an orientation which was present, and perhaps even dominant, in Dutch Reformed theology from the earliest days.

It has often been argued that the Arminian movement in the Netherlands and the French Amyraldian theology have much in common. Bangs' work makes clear that this is only partially correct. Arminius and Amyraut are surely struggling against the same Reformed scholasticism and are assailed by the same heresy-hunting and intransigent mentality, but a comparison of their theology reveals that the answers they propose are more dissimilar than similar. In the end, Arminius' method is much closer to the orthodox and his teachings much farther from orthodoxy than Amyraut's.

Brian G. Armstrong
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia